Man as a Causal Factor in the Extinction of the Pleistocene Megafauna PDF Download
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Author: Jim V. Myers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Extinct mammals
Languages : en
Pages : 94
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Book Description
Author: Jim V. Myers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Extinct mammals
Languages : en
Pages : 94
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Book Description
Author: Ross D.E. MacPhee
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475752024
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402
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Book Description
"Near time" -an interval that spans the last 100,000 years or so of earth history-qualifies as a remarkable period for many reasons. From an anthropocentric point of view, the out standing feature of near time is the fact that the evolution, cultural diversification, and glob al spread of Homo sapiens have all occurred within it. From a wider biological perspective, however, the hallmark of near time is better conceived of as being one of enduring, repeat ed loss. The point is important. Despite the sense of uniqueness implicit in phrases like "the biodiversity crisis," meant to convey the notion that the present bout of extinctions is by far the worst endured in recent times, substantial losses have occurred throughout near time. In the majority of cases, these losses occurred when, and only when, people began to ex pand across areas that had never before experienced their presence. Although the explana tion for these correlations in time and space may seem obvious, it is one thing to rhetori cally observe that there is a connection between humans and recent extinctions, and quite another to demonstrate it scientifically. How should this be done? Traditionally, the study of past extinctions has fallen largely to researchers steeped in such disciplines as paleontology, systematics, and paleoecology. The evaluation of future losses, by contrast, has lain almost exclusively within the domain of conservation biolo gists. Now, more than ever, there is opportunity for overlap and sharing of information.
Author: James C. Hartley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adaptation (Biology)
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
Author: Ross D E MacPhee
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393249301
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
The fascinating lives and puzzling demise of some of the largest animals on earth. Until a few thousand years ago, creatures that could have been from a sci-fi thriller—including gorilla-sized lemurs, 500-pound birds, and crocodiles that weighed a ton or more—roamed the earth. These great beasts, or “megafauna,” lived on every habitable continent and on many islands. With a handful of exceptions, all are now gone. What caused the disappearance of these prehistoric behemoths? No one event can be pinpointed as a specific cause, but several factors may have played a role. Paleomammalogist Ross D. E. MacPhee explores them all, examining the leading extinction theories, weighing the evidence, and presenting his own conclusions. He shows how theories of human overhunting and catastrophic climate change fail to account for critical features of these extinctions, and how new thinking is needed to elucidate these mysterious losses. Along the way, we learn how time is determined in earth history; how DNA is used to explain the genomics and phylogenetic history of megafauna—and how synthetic biology and genetic engineering may be able to reintroduce these giants of the past. Until then, gorgeous four-color illustrations by Peter Schouten re-create these megabeasts here in vivid detail.
Author: John Raymond Elliott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mammoths
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
Author: Gary Haynes
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402087934
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
The volume contains summaries of facts, theories, and unsolved problems pertaining to the unexplained extinction of dozens of genera of mostly large terrestrial mammals, which occurred ca. 13,000 calendar years ago in North America and about 1,000 years later in South America. Another equally mysterious wave of extinctions affected large Caribbean islands around 5,000 years ago. The coupling of these extinctions with the earliest appearance of human beings has led to the suggestion that foraging humans are to blame, although major climatic shifts were also taking place in the Americas during some of the extinctions. The last published volume with similar (but not identical) themes -- Extinctions in Near Time -- appeared in 1999; since then a great deal of innovative, exciting new research has been done but has not yet been compiled and summarized. Different chapters in this volume provide in-depth resumés of the chronology of the extinctions in North and South America, the possible insights into animal ecology provided by studies of stable isotopes and anatomical/physiological characteristics such as growth increments in mammoth and mastodont tusks, the clues from taphonomic research about large-mammal biology, the applications of dating methods to the extinctions debate, and archeological controversies concerning human hunting of large mammals.
Author: Timothy Sweet
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812253426
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
In Extinction and the Human Timothy Sweet ponders the realities of animal extinction and endangerment and the often divergent Native American and Euro-American narratives that surround them, focusing especially on the force of human impact on megafauna—mammoths, whales, and the North American bison.
Author: Paul S. Martin
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816547440
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 903
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Book Description
"What caused the extinction of so many animals at or near the end of the Pleistocene? Was it overkill by human hunters, the result of a major climatic change or was it just a part of some massive evolutionary turnover? Questions such as these have plagued scientists for over one hundred years and are still being heatedly debated today. Quaternary Extinctions presents the latest and most comprehensive examination of these questions." —Geological Magazine "May be regarded as a kind of standard encyclopedia for Pleistocene vertebrate paleontology for years to come." —American Scientist "Should be read by paleobiologists, biologists, wildlife managers, ecologists, archeologists, and anyone concerned about the ongoing extinction of plants and animals." —Science "Uncommonly readable and varied for watchers of paleontology and the rise of humankind." —Scientific American "Represents a quantum leap in our knowledge of Pleistocene and Holocene palaeobiology. . . . Many volumes on our bookshelves are destined to gather dust rather than attention. But not this one." —Nature "Two strong impressions prevail when first looking into this epic compendium. One is the judicious balance of views that range over the whole continuum between monocausal, cultural, or environmental explanations. The second is that both the data base and theoretical sophistication of the protagonists in the debate have improved by a quantum leap since 1967." —American Anthropologist
Author: Natalia Andrea Villavicencio Figueroa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
Abstract Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinctions in South America: Chronology, environmental changes and human impacts at regional scales by Natalia Andrea Villavicencio Figueroa Doctor of Philosophy in Integrative Biology University of California, Berkeley Professor Anthony D. Barnosky, Chair By the end of the Pleistocene the world lost most of its species of large mammals in what is known as the Late Quaternary Extinction event. The debate about the possible causes of extinction revolves around the impacts caused by modern humans migrating around the world, the climate changes associated with the glacial-interglacial transition happening at the time of the extinction and combinations of both. South America was one of the most severely impacted continents losing over eighty percent of all its species of mammals with an average body weight exceeding forty four kilograms. In this continent, human arrival and late glacial climate changes were not far separated in time and previous analyses have shown interesting regional differences in the timing and pattern of extinction inside the continent. A critical step to understand the extinction event at regional and continental scales is the development of robust radiocarbon-based chronologies of megafaunal presence and extinction which can be compared to the timing of arrival of humans and of environmental changes. This dissertation addresses the Late Quaternary Extinction event debate in South America by developing analyses of the extinction at regional scales, and improving the chronology of extinction for some regions of the continent by radiocarbon dating bone specimens of extinct megafauna following high standard procedures for radiocarbon dating bone. Chapter one consists of a bestiary of the Pleistocene megafauna of South America. It describes each species and genera of megafauna giving details about their geographic distribution and general paleoecology. A final synthesis of the information shows regional differences in megafaunal diversity that can be explained by sampling bias. While regional differences in diversity persist in time when the Late Pleistocene is compared to the present, regions are today more similar than in the past, which suggests that a considerable amount of regional megafaunal endemism was lost during the Late Quaternary Extinction event. Chapter two is a regional scale analysis of the megafaunal extinction in Southern Patagonia. Using published information it was possible to build a robust chronology of magefaunal extinction and human arrival into this region. When comparing these chronologies with the timing of major environmental changes it seems that a combination of human impacts and vegetation changes were behind most of the megafaunal extinctions. Chapter three describes the process of radiocarbon dating bone specimens of extinct megafauna following high-standard procedures of bone treatment. It was possible to produce fifty four radiocarbon dates from which twenty seven are reported in this chapter. The new data improves the chronology of extinction for some areas, particularly for the Central Andes and for Southern Chile. These new chronologies of extinction showed that in the Central Andes extinct megafauna disappears at the time of human arrival while the megafauna present in Southern Chile coexisted with humans for thousands of years. In the second case the megafaunal extinction happens at a time of major environmental changes. These differences highlight the need of developing regional analyses, rather than continental-scale analyses, in order to have a more comprehensive understanding of the extinction event in South America.
Author: Shepard Krech
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393321005
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
Krech (anthropology, Brown U.) treats such provocative issues as whether the Eden in which Native Americans are viewed as living prior to European contact was a feature of native environmentalism or simply low population density; indigenous use of fire; and the Indian role in near-extinctions of buffalo, deer, and beaver. He concludes that early Indians' culturally-mediated closeness with nature was not always congruent with modern conservation ideas, with implications for views of, and by, contemporary Indians. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
